Friday, August 23, 2013

First thing to identify is exorcism is Catholic based, and non-Catholics do deliverance sessions. Both provide the same result in removing demons from people’s lives, by the name of Jesus Christ our LORD and Savior. Deliverance has more focus on the inner healing, starting with Salvation, and ending with Christian counseling with follow-up of how your life is revolving around God.

An exorcism occurs by following the “Ritual Rite of Exorcism – 1999." Turn 1999 upside down and you can see 666. Things that make you go Hmmmmm?

Approval is required at the highest level of the Catholic chain of command before this procedure is accomplished. An exorcism is a specific ritual and is already composed so that the Priest and his assistants can follow in the systematic process.

Only one case has transpired that a person has died during this procedure. Most often referred to as “The Exorcism of Emily Rose," which is the true story of Anneliese Michel from the mid 1970’s. Because her exorcism was heavily indwelled with many top demons, many Priests had been involved over the years, and unfortunately, she eventually died of malnutrition and pneumonia.

Sometimes with difficult cases like this, the Bible tells us, we must pray and fast for a period, until God gives us the wisdom and discernment of how to proceed. Here is a partial list of common symptoms of diabolical possession contrary to psychological sickness; Ineffectiveness of medicine, opposition to what is sacred, susceptibility to holy water and blessings, violent, furious and aggressive reactions.

If a psychiatrist is taking too much time to heal the mentally sick and his medicines seem to be ineffective, it is better for the psychologist to recommend the patient to see an exorcist. Sometimes, demons can impair an individual, which creates a mental illness. The only other option, which is rarely used, is to seek out a Priest.

Since involving yours truly with Deliverance ministry since 2010 and have accomplished many cases since, that evidence bears out that often cases are different from another. Deliverance ministry gets into the root of how it started. With God’s Preservation Ministry (sfprs.org/), we believe in research first. We have every potential client complete a consent form to protect us legally and a lengthy questionnaire of their past. This gives us a solid foundation to start to commence. Often there are hidden issues that are deeply buried within the client and do not appear until the Deliverance session.

Today, because of Satan’s influence with the media: TV, movies, music, literature, video games, etc. We endanger ourselves to evil and on many levels, and you can get your five minutes of fame by becoming one of many Para-celebrities. Which in 1984, the movie “Ghostbusters” came out and everybody wanted to do ghost hunting despite Deuteronomy 18:9-15 showing us it is sinful.

Because of all that, “we” have to be careful and have some certainty with clients coming forward asking for help. Are they seeking fame? Are they mentally ill? Are they really possessed or oppressed? Thus, the in-depth research we do with every single case. Most importantly, we must be right with God, and prepare ourselves with prayer, fasting, and using all of our senses and working with a minimum of two people at all times.

Demonic spirits are all around us every day looking for an opportunity to start trouble. The most common method is they have a “Legal Right” to be within a person. This is a direct violation of the laws of scripture. This “entry point” is because the person is emotionally or spiritually weak. In the case of a person not being a Christian, they are large targets for the demonic to possess them. Christians can only suffer from oppression by evil because of their sins.

If the person decides they need deliverance, they will have to make some lifestyle changes. Daily habits of praying, reading the Bible, forgiving others, doing the best they can at their stage of a relationship with Jesus, try to be Christ like, etc. The person must deal with these areas of sin by closing these entryways, and receive inner healing from God before we can perform a deliverance session.

God loves us, and wants us to demonstrate adulation to him too. Completing the deliverance session and continuing the pursuit of a Christian lifestyle will bring about life changes in our attitude, spiritually, mentally in life. The rewards are many for those who walk the straight and narrow. The main goal of deliverance, or any healing ministry, is not simply to experience the power of Jesus or even to fight against and defeat evil. It is to minister the love of God. Jesus used his power to show his love as illustrated in the four Gospels. Jesus is a great role model for us on how we should conform.

Last time we asked the question: is it possible to access
the mind of God? We noted that the beautifully staggering truth is "yes,
we can"--that is precisely what the bible is...God revealing some of His
mind to us. I wonder, as bible-believing Christians, if we sufficiently
appreciate the astonishing wonderment of God speaking to us...revealing His
mind to us? As we shall see, this self-disclosure of God provides the
foundation for everything--certainly everything pertaining to our worldview.

A provisional definition of a worldview is best conveyed
like this: to see with a biblical worldview is to see all of reality through
God's eyes...to see it as He does. Or we could put it like this: a worldview is
how we view God and the universe, and our relationship to both. I suppose if
there is one thing unique about my book, it is that it teaches about the nature
and importance of worldviews. Worldviews are like spectacles through which we
view the world, and it effects how we think, feel, and behave. We almost always
hold them unconsciously, unless we systematically discuss them as we are now.
This is not secret knowledge, like gnosticism/occult, but it is rare, even
among pastors, to know how to think with a full-orbed biblical worldview

In my book I list what I consider the seven components of
any worldview...

1.
What is the nature of God or ultimate reality?

2.
What is your purpose in life?

3.
What is the nature of reality?

4.
Is history going anywhere?

5.
What is the basis for morality?

6.
What does it mean to be human (essential traits of
being human)?

7.
What happens to us after we die?

Let me ask three questions: do you see how utterly basic
these questions are...how divergent the answers would be depending upon whom we
asked...and how seriously impoverished and "lost" one's life would be
if they lacked certitude regarding them? Sometimes stating a thing negatively
can have some shock value which is conducive to learning...like this. "I
have no clue as to what God is like...no idea why I should get out of bed
because I have no clear purpose...I think reality is all in my head...morality
is whatever feels right to me....humans are just apes with little hair...we are
annihilated when we die...I think..." Get my point??!!

Before I proceed any further, I believe that one of the best
ways we learn is just by doing. So, the next time you read a novel, go to an
art gallery, watch a TV program or movie, and so on, please ask yourself how
they/it are "answering" each of the above seven questions. Obviously,
the movie director is not going to have one of his cast say, "Hey, this is
the worldview of this film...god is energy, pleasure is our purpose...and so
on...!" It takes listening carefully to dialogue, and other factors, to
pick up the explicit or implicit expressions of the seven worldview components.
That is, put into practice the habit of viewing everything through a biblical
worldview. But that involves being able
to spot the distortions in one's worldview spectacles,as they are presented on the
silver screen or in the novel, ect...After awhile it becomes second nature. We
need to develop a distinctively Christian mind if wish to have a substantive
impact on our culture (Rom 12:1-2)

I want to introduce a philosophical term--epistemology--a
branch of philosophy which deals with the validity, nature, and extent of human
knowledge. Put another way--it deals with how we know, and how we know we
know..Christians should know this term because it lies at the heart of what
ails our country We are not experiencing a generation gap, but instead we are
experiencing an epistemological gap (which at root is spiritual in nature).
Which has led to what some call "culture wars"Let me explain.

One-hundred years ago there was a basically Christian ethos
in our country.. If you were to ask the average person off the street any/all
of the seven questions above, most would have given an answer that was roughly
based on the bible. If someone disagreed with them in conversation, it was
understood that one of them was wrong...or both were. Today the responses to
the above questions would be all over the map, leaning heavily toward New
Age/neo-gnostic beliefs. And to even gently assert that someone is wrong is
taken as an offense...absolute truth lies bleeding in the street. Yes, it is an
epistemological gap. How we acquire knowledge regarding basic issues has
radically changed.

The seven questions above, which comprise one's worldview,
are either answered by God's revelation or man's autonomous speculation. These
differing presuppositions lead to radically differing conclusions..as we shall
see. Is it not instructive that the first temptation was epistemological in
nature? Says Satan/serpant, "C'mon Eve, use your autonomous mind to
determine right and wrong...and you'll also discover that YOU are the real
god....be a big girl and THINK FOR YOURSELF." How we gain knowledge is the
key to everything...we either fear God and attain true knowledge of reality or
we trust in ourselves and distort reality.

Where do you go to answer these questions? What is your
final court of appeal in answering life's most basic questions? Do you look
inward...to your intuition...your experience...what your heart says--or do you
look outside of yourself to the Living God who created heaven and earth, who in
His kindness and love, has spoken true-truth to us in His written Word?

Let's go to Psalm 119 to get just a glimpse into what the
biblical worldview is. Our epistemic assumption is that we can access the mind
of God, and this is done via His special revelation in the bible. ALL
knowledge, certainly all the knowledge pertaining to the seven questions above,
can only be answered by accessing the mind of God--because we are incapable of
ascertaining the answers autonomously...

Please read these verses carefully, and in light of these
basic questions. As a philosophy major, it was a beautifully stimulating
experience to see the basic questions philosophers had been asking for
millennia, and how the bible fit like hand-in-glove in answering them!

"Oh how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the
day." (119:97)

"I have more understanding than all my teachers, for
Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep
your precepts." (vv. 99-100)

"Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my
path."(v. 105)

"How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it
according to Your Word." (v.9)

"I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not Your
commandments from me." (V.19)

"Righteous are You, O Lord, and right are Your rules."
(v. 137)

"The sum of Your Word is truth, and every one of Your
righteous rules endures forever. (v.160)

"Your hands have made me and fashioned me; give me
understanding that that I may learn Your commandments." (v. 73)

"Forever, O Lord, Your Word is firmly fixed in the
heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You have established the
earth, and it stands fast. By Your appointment they stand this day, for all
things are Your servants." (vvs. 89-91)

Please forgive my repetition, but these concepts are new to
some, and they are vitally important for us to understand (for a whole slew of
reasons) Epistemology accents the wonderment of having God's personal
revelation to us--explaining who He is....who we are....the nature of the
universe--and our relationship to both. Using just Psalm 119 let us give a
brief review of a biblical worldview.

1. What
is the nature of God or ultimate reality? (119: 89-91, 137) The word used for
God throughout the psalm is LORD....which is Yahweh in the OT--this is the
covenant Name of God. He is infinite/personal God who created the heavens and
earth...all creation is His servant. Energy is not ultimate reality.

2. What
is our purpose in life? Frankly, had Yahweh not revealed this to us, our lives
would be utterly meaningless. (v.97) speaks of loving the bible of God, and the
God of the bible..the Great Commandment is our noble purpose as redeemed
humans. (v.73) God Himself made and fashioned us...we are not cosmic accidents
or descendants of monkeys. And of course Jesus Himself declares that loving God
is the greatest commandment. Think of all the alternatives we have come up with
to replace loving God as our purpose (or dominant life value, as some put
it)...as Calvin said, we are idol factories.

3. What
is the nature of reality? It is not an illusion. Matter/energy is not eternal.

(v.89-91) Again, we see that there is a distinction between
the Creator and His creation. There are two basic types of reality--the self
existent and eternal Creator, and His creation which He created ex nihilo. The
physical world is not the full circumference of reality--there is an unseen,
spiritual dimension as well. I finally saw The Conjuring movie last
night--about Ed and Lorraine Warren who were pioneer demonologists. The movie
did a surprisingly good job of expressing the reality of supernatural evil.

4. Where
is history going? LORD...Yahweh is the faithful God of the covenants--the flow
of history (including your personal history) has meaning because history is
His-story. The whole psalm points to a God who will hold us accountable for our
thoughts, words, and deeds. (v. 19) that we are sojourners here, means that we
are preparing to go home! Eastern thought tends to see history as moving in
endless, meaningless cycles..NO!

5. What
is the basis for morality...or how do we distinguish right from wrong? (v 9,
137, 160) A young person can discover right and wrong by meditating on God's
word, which is entirely truthful. Because God is righteous, His laws are
righteous..forever. We know that right and wrong are based on the unchanging
character of God, as expressed in his written Word. If energy is ultimate
reality, then there is no adequate basis for morality. Or if we base it on
anything other than God's Word, then it is not a sufficient basis for morality.

6. What
does it mean to be human (essential traits)?
v.73 God made us and fashioned us in the womb ( see Ps. 139--fearfully
and wonderfully made!) Human beings are not self-referential...As John Calvin
said, knowledge of ourselves and knowledge of God are inextricably bound
together in a thousand different ways, since we are made in His image. We are
certainly not animals or glorified monkeys. We are noble, but we are sinners as
well.

7. What
happens when we die? Again, we are called "sojourners on earth" (v.
19) We are just passing through this time/place before we enter our eternal
rest. We are a body/soul composite, and when we die our soul immediately goes
before the Holy Judge of heaven and earth. Death is determinitive of our
eternal destiny--either eternity in heaven or hell. At the Last Judgment we
will be reunited with our glorified bodies. Hence, any notion of "trapped
souls" is repugnant to scripture and to God's holy character. Ed and
Lorraine Warren got this issue wrong--unfortunately. Annihilation is also
wrong-headed.

(89-91, 99-100,160) All of this discussion would be for
naught if it were not for the truth of these verses.The infinite and personal
God of the everlasting covenant is really there, and He has not remained
silent. His Word is true truth (forever His Word is fixed in heaven) Every one
of His righteous rules endures forever. Amen!

Have you ever heard someone say, "I have 35 years
researching the paranormal."? I certainly have, and it is often (not
always) used as a fact to buttress the force of their argument against what I
or someone else has said that contradicted a claim of theirs. Here the psalmist
states that he has more true knowledge than his teachers BECAUSE it is grounded
in the granite of revealed truth, and not in the shifting sands of man's
autonomous speculation.

I have mentioned this example before but it bears repeating:
an unbelieving friend of mine, who specializes in getting rid of spirits who
are hostile (and they stay busy all year), loudly proclaims two things: they
have nearly 40 years of experience, and they have never, ever seen a demon!
This is usually followed by a sarcastic, withering criticism of those who
stupidly believe that all ghosts are demons. This person is my friend and it
grieves me that they are so blind that they cannot even recognize demons when
they are attacking or harassing them. Every classic criteria used to determine
demonic presence has been met many times over, and yet they still refuse to see
reality clearly...tragic, but quite common.If our worldview glasses are
distorting our perception of reality, then decades of experience will only make
one more foolish in their understanding of the world.

There are no answers to the seven questions above if our
epistemology is not grounded in the Word of God. That is, if we do not look to
God's revelation to learn what: God is like, the nature of reality, our purpose
in life, what is right and wrong...and so on, then we have no adequate
foundation for acquiring any knowledge. This may not be exciting, but please
know that this is bedrock foundation for building a biblical worldview...reason
for getting out of bed and not committing suicide. I am baffled by this
optimism which is grounded in a worldview in which impersonal energy is
Ultimate reality....that kind of optimism has both feet planted firmly in
mid-air.

Each question is SO basic...if only one is wrong or even
partially distorted, it will seriously impact ones life. Yet the majority of
people in the world have all of them (seven questions above) partially or
totally wrong! Why? Because their epistemology is wrong. This is not rocket
science...we either humbly look to God to answer life's most basic questions,
or we pridefully look to ourselves...revelation or speculation. We DO have
access to the mind of God through the Holy Bible--and that is the foundation of
a biblical worldview! Please do try to watch and read with these questions in
mind this week...

P.S I still need someone to help revamp my website...please!
Thank you... mark